What exactly does this decision do? It gives a profit source to service providers like Verizon or Comcast... the people who hook you up to the Internet itself and not the ones who host and serve your email or website. The decision allows them to "sell" you access to particular websites and content by charging you more to reach them or to charge the owners of those sites to provide greater access to them. Or both -- probably both for more popular sites (as they do with cable television).
In fact, under this decision, the providers can now increase the speed of access to certain websites (the ones that are "pay sites") and comparatively decrease the speed of (or even block) access to the rest. By all accounts, that is exactly what the companies are planning to do. "Verizon lawyer Helgi Walker made the company's intentions all too clear, saying the company wants to prioritize those websites and services that are willing to shell out for better access," according to a Free Press report on a September 2013 hearing. "She also admitted that the company would like to block online content from those companies or individuals that don't pay Verizon's tolls."
To speculate on what that will mean for most content offers on the Internet, including many progressive and information websites, is to wade through a marsh of nightmares.
Wired Magazine was quick to point out another problem most pundits were ignoring. This decision tears apart one of the few vehicles for learning available to poor people. In fact, the Internet (partly through cell-phone technology) has become one of the principle vehicles of communication for people of color and poor people in this country. Even those without computers can go to the library and log on -- as they do by droves here in my neighborhood, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where the average income is in the bottom third of the nation's and the local library is packed every minute it's open.
We don't often think about the importance the Internet has for poor people but it is, in many communities, the only source of vital information. This decision threatens to end that because no company is going to provide resources to people when they can make money cutting them off.
The impact on progressive and community organizing will be harsh; that's practically guaranteed. The absence of Net Neutrality will cut people off from many sources of politically critical (and vital) information because organizations of the Left who have websites can't afford to pay all these companies so people can visit them and many people using the Internet aren't going to pay just to visit movement websites. This will most deeply affect "more casual" users: activists, for example, who log on for an hour a day to get email and maybe browse a news site and then do a bit of specific research they need in their work. This is a group the Internet was designed to address because it doesn't require fees or subscriptions to get to specific content. You log on and do what you want as long as you want to. That will no longer be possible.
While activists are calling on the FCC to redefine Internet access as a telecommunications service and apply neutrality rules to it, the response from FCC Chairman Wheeler indicates that the Commission may be more than reluctant to take that step.
If it did, there would certainly be a strong push-back from the cable industry association National Cable & Telecommunications Association whose President, former FCC chair Michael Powell, has promised a fight similar to "World War III" if the FCC were to make such a reclassification. The Commission doesn't want that kind of fight against one of this country's most powerful trade associations. In fact, it may not want this fight at all.
It's not clear that the FCC believes in Net Neutrality; nothing it has done would indicate a firm commitment to that principle. At the same time, the court ruling affirms enormous FCC power, allowing it regulate Internet use and traffic in just about any way short of net neutrality -- pricing, distribution, even content -- provided that it does so pursuing "fairness and public good". Of course, under the ruling, it gets to decide what "public good" is. So the court took away the power to impose net neutrality but it gave the FCC unprecedented powers over everything else. How will it use those powers? No one knows and Wheeler isn't saying but depending on a government agency's good will and wisdom has historically proven dangerous.
One issue not being seen in mainstream commentary is an issue raised by some progressive information activists and community organizers. If Internet access is a human right, dumping Net Neutrality is a violation of it. As the communications corporations see it, that principle isn't profitable. So, if it is to be exercised as a human right, it must be taken out of the hands of corporations. This is actually more feasible than it might sound.
Many municipalities across the country have begun experimenting with public broadband systems using wifi (or wireless Internet) technologies. When fully implemented across a city or town, everyone living or working there has automatic, high-speed Internet access at absolutely no cost. Net Neutrality is guaranteed because discrimination in public utility policies is illegal in this country.
There are several municipalities that might undertake implementation right now. Jackson, Mississippi, where veteran movement leader Chockwe Lumumba has been elected Mayor, is certainly one. My hometown, New York City, just elected Bill DeBlasio who ran a campaign on his progressive credentials and policies. A city-wide Internet system would be quite a model for the rest of the country. Seattle, Boston, Washington DC? What about the smaller "forward looking" town/cities like the Hoboken or Jersey City in New Jersey?
There are scores if not hundreds of municipalities in this country whose governments might be willing to take this project on.
Is it possible? The technology is there using "mesh" systems that are already developed and could be quickly expanded and perfected. Would every municipality support it politically and be able to afford it? If it were mandated by the FCC (which now has the power to do that) and at least partially supported through federal funds (and there are plenty of those if Washington deems it a priority), it's tough to envision many cities and towns resisting. In any case, that's a fight we should be willing to undertake.
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